Scrooge or a Confused Hindu?

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Please find below a Guest post from my friend 'Radhika'. She has a funny bone and I bet you will be tickled silly with the below Blog post.

Christmas in America is the single most frustrating event of the year for me. I love the lights and the feel good movies on TV as much as the next person, but Christmas in America confuses the hell out of me.

Since all my education in India was in a Catholic establishment, Christmas was about the nativity play, cake on the last day of school, before holidays began, getting bebinkas and cakes from Christian friends(kind of a thank you for the Diwali Besan Ladoos I gave them) etc, etc.
In short it was about Christianity, the birth of Jesus, the three wise men , the star and so on.

Cut to 17 years later in America. Arguably, the most conservative nation in the western hemisphere, where every 4 years politicians are out to prove what good Christians they are, where you could win or lose the presidency depending on your Good Christian quotient , where Bible thumping is a way of life. So why is it that this nation founded apparently on Judeo Christian values has a hard time saying, ”Merry Christmas” during Christmas?? Why are people supposed to have Holiday Trees and not Christmas Trees, why is Santa Claus, an acceptable secular God?? I have often wondered about these people , who are so easily offended by the obvious?

My sons, who are in Pre kindergarten had to take holiday goody bags with treats for everybody in their class. But we were told, the bags can have no religious items, the bags can say, Happy Holiday, but not Merry Christmas, but Santa is of course acceptable! ARRRRGH!! So after 17 years here, I now look forward to Christmas like the next wave of H1N1 scare news. It is inevitable, but I don’t have to like it!! And I’m still looking for that Hyper Politically Correct person, who is offended by my, Merrry Christmas, so I can say to him/ her, “Enjoy your holidays and by the way, Merry Christmas to You and Yours”. You know, Scrooge loved to be evil during the HOLIDAYS!!!!!! HA, ha, ha…..

I wonder where does political correctness end and going off the deep end lunacy begin???

P.S: I would like to thank Vinita for letting me write/vent on her blog. We are related, our husbands grew up together in the same building, back home, but Vinita and I have never met! We became friends because of her blog, which I love! So, thank you, Internet friend. I hope to meet you soon….

Comments

  1. Vinita Apte16 December 2009 at 18:27

    You are so funny :) See I told you. That you can write. Keep writing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kusum Rohra16 December 2009 at 22:00

    Wow I had no idea it went to deep in Uncle sam's land.,,, am shocked to say the least, like you I too studied in a convent school, Christmas was about Christianity, Santa was all ho ho ho and I always relate Christmas with such joy.

    To think about it, I wonder why do people smirk and say 'It happens only in India' it happens everywhere I think.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Smitha17 December 2009 at 22:16

    That is so funny! Thank god, in the UK, it is alright to say Merry Christmas :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Unknown19 December 2009 at 10:03

    Thank you everybody. I had a great time writing/venting about this topic, since it a pet peeve of mine. I should thank Vinita, though for encouraging me to actually write.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ashish Kherdekar31 December 2009 at 23:50

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete

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